Forced play-out is a functionality that can, for example, be used to control that a user can not skip certain advertising parts when watching a video clip, or other content. By ensuring this advertisers may be willing to subsidize the cost of the content access.
The Open IPTV Forum standardization (OIPF) is, for example, putting requirements on this type of functionality. In this regard, reference is made to Open IPTV Forum, “Functional Architecture V2.0”, http://www.openiptvforum.org/docs/OIPF-Functional_Architecture_v2—0-2009-09-08.pdf.
To fulfill these requirements, the Marlin Developer Community (MDC), which develops one of the content protection solutions that are recommended by OIPF, has created an extension to Marlin that is called the Dynamic Media Zones (DMZ) specification (http://www.marlin-community.com; see “Marlin Dynamic Media Zones”, Version 1.0, Final, Marlin Developer Community, 25 Jan. 2008 —reference [1] hereinafter—and Version 1.0.1, Final, Marlin Developer Community, 13 Nov. 2009). OIPF is considering adopting a solution for forced play-out control that is based on Marlin DMZ. It requires however a solution that is also applicable to unprotected content (http://member.oipf.tv/Application/documetapp/downloadimmediate/default.aspx?docID=3410; see Open IPTV Forum, “OIPF-IPP-SOL-107-Navigation_Constraints_in_OIPF”—reference [2] hereinafter), and to Moving Pictures Expert Group-2 (MPEG-2) Transport Streams (TS), besides MP4 files.
The Marlin DMZ solution does not provide mapping to MPEG-2 TSs. In the November 2009 meeting, a proposal was made how to carry DMZ information in MPEG-2 TS streams (see marlin-DynamicMediaZonesSpecification-v1.1—20091102.doc, non-public submission to November 2009 MDC meeting, from Sye Loong Keoh, Philips,—reference [4] hereinafter). The proposal was not adopted and is not usable for unprotected content, as it carries the DMZ information in Entitlement Control Messages (ECMs), i.e. key messages that are only used for protected content. No other proposal is hitherto known that suggests a feasible solution to the problem of signaling DMZ information in MPEG-2 or other TSs so that the solution is usable for both protected/encrypted and unprotected/unencrypted content.
In addition, there are other weaknesses of the previous proposal (e.g., regarding precise start and end point marking of the zones).